


Mirage

by anaer



Category: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Angst, seven day story, strifehart winter week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-08 03:35:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8828788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anaer/pseuds/anaer
Summary: Squall is cold.  Always, incessantly – a deep freeze that permeates from his chest, through his limbs, enveloping him.  That freezing chill is impossible to shake, to change.  It’s a part of him, as much as his brown hair or icy blue eyes.  Or more accurate, it’s a scar as permanent as the one on his face.  
At night, Squall dreams. He dreams of warmth and fire – he dreams of the sun.  Or, no – not the sun.  But hair the same colour of the sun – hair that reflects the sun, and a rare smile just as bright.  Blue eyes that twinkle at him. 
And then Squall wakes up.  He wakes up to a familiar blonde head that’s not quite the right shade of gold, and eyes not the right shade of blue, and a lingering warmth in his chest from a dream he can’t remember. 
And on and on it goes.





	1. Fireside

Squall is cold.  Always, incessantly – a deep freeze that permeates from his chest, through his limbs, enveloping him.  That freezing chill is impossible to shake, to change.  It’s a part of him, as much as his brown hair or icy blue eyes.  Or more accurate, it’s a scar as permanent as the one on his face.  He wasn’t always like this, he’s sure.  He doesn’t know what caused it, but it’s been this way now for as long as he can remember. 

At night, Squall dreams.  He dreams of warmth and fire – he dreams of the sun.  Or, no – not the sun.  But hair the same colour of the sun – hair that reflects the sun, and a rare smile just as bright.  Blue eyes that twinkle at him.  His dreams are like fire in his icy heart.  A blaze that warms him from the core.  Something (someone) that makes him laugh.  Makes him feel.  Makes him feel alive in a way he hasn’t ~~since~~ – he hasn’t.  Ever.  When he dreams, he’s warm.

And then Squall wakes up.  He wakes up to a familiar blonde head that’s not quite the right shade of gold, and eyes not the right shade of blue, and a lingering warmth in his chest from a dream he can’t remember.  Seifer, who’s happy to see him.  Who says good morning.  Squall doesn’t reply.  He never does.

They eat breakfast.  Seifer says something to him, but Squall isn’t paying attention.  He’s never paying attention, too busy trying to remember something he’s forgotten.  Trying to recapture the wisps of warmth disappearing in his chest.  Trying to keep the fire blazing in his heart for just a little longer.  It dies.  Seifer gets mad, like always.  They fight.  Like always.  Squall leaves.  The pattern holds. 

He doesn’t go to work, though he knows he should.  Squall can’t remember the last time he went to work (though he can’t remember a lot these days, so it could be yesterday for all he knows).  He can barely remember where he works.  So he just walks.  Aimlessly.  He turns down a street he’s never been on before.  At the end, there’s a bar.  It’s familiar.  He’s not sure how – he’s never seen it before.  There’s a bike parked outside, even more familiar.  He frowns.  A sudden yearning arches up inside him, and before he knows it, he’s at the door of the bar.  7th Heaven, the sign reads.  His frown deepens, something niggling in the back of his mind.  And then a gust of wind, and all familiarity is gone.  He pushes the door open anyway and walks inside.

Squall blinks.

He’s back at home.  Seifer’s watching the television and complaining about something.  Same as always.  Squall pays it no mind.  It’s nighttime and he’s tired.  And cold.  Like always.   So he goes to the bedroom and gets in the bed.  He sleeps.  And he dreams.

Squall dreams of fire and warmth. He dreams of fighting and magic and voices talking to him – pleading with him.  One voice in particular, begging him to wake up.  And he’s trying, Cloud, he really is, but—

Squall wakes up. 


	2. Friends/Family

There’s been a change in Squall’s routine.  Irvine is most pleased when he finds out.  Squall had to dump Seifer at some point, he reassures.  They were bad for each other anyway.  Squall doesn’t reply – not verbally.  He shrugs.  He’s not broken up about it.  That’s not why he broke things off with Seifer.  There was a reason, he knows.  It was an important reason.  He can’t remember why.  He can’t muster up enough energy to care. 

Irvine drags him out to celebrate.  The rest of his friends are happy, too.  No one liked Seifer – especially Yuffie.  Squall thinks it’s a waste of time.  He lets them have their fun anyway.  He looks at the whole group.  He frowns.  Something’s off.  Missing.  He counts his friends again. Irvine and Selphie and Yuffie and Tifa and Zell and Aerith and – no.  That’s it.  Someone’s missing. 

As soon as the thought materializes in his mind, it dissipates.  The rest of the night passes in a blur.  Squall doesn’t end up sleeping that night.  He thinks he might drink too much, even though he can’t remember ordering anything.  He makes a pass at Zell at one point.  Tifa makes a joke about Squall’s taste in blondes that leaves him reeling. 

The next thing Squall knows, he’s at dinner with his family.  He wasn’t supposed to have dinner with his family until the end of the week.  The last day and a half have disappeared.  He wakes up to Laguna giving a toast to Raine, his parents celebrating their anniversary.  His sister is there, too, and Ellone smiles expectantly at him.  He’s confused, but then it returns in a flash.  They had picked out a gift together.  For their parents’ anniversary.  Right.  Squall pulls the envelope out from his pocket and presents it to his overly enthused parents.  It’s nothing deep – a travel voucher.  Let them get away some place nice together.  Ellone’s idea, most likely.  Squall wouldn’t have bought a gift at all. 

They’re ecstatic.  They both hug him simultaneously, and it should be warm, but it’s not.  It’s wrong.  This whole thing is wrong.  He feels it in his soul.  He doesn’t know why, though.  He has the niggling sense in his mind that his mother is dead, that he doesn’t know his father really.  More likely, Squall is wrong. 

Squall already knows he’s wrong.

He should be grateful.  Two loving parents and a sister.  A mother who takes care of him, who always cooked his favourite food growing up.  A father he’s surprisingly close to despite their vastly different personalities.  Someone to always look after him.  And he should also be grateful because – a chance to get to know his dead mother and his father the way he never had.  Except, no, that still wasn’t right.  They’d both raised him, hadn’t they?  Together.

Squall is in his apartment.  He blinks.  He’s not sure when he got back.  It’s quieter now, with Seifer gone.  Peaceful.  Still not right – still unsettled.  Nothing is right.  It would drive him crazy if he could muster up the energy to care.  But he can’t.  So he sleeps. 

And he dreams. 

He feels what he’s missing right at the edge of the dream, and he reaches for it, and Cloud’s reaching back, he’s sure, but just out of grasp just where he can’t quite reach so he stretches a bit further—

Squall wakes up.


	3. Ice/Northern Lights

Squall’s dreams have been changing lately.  Different.  He’s not sure what prompted this.  Ice is taking over not only his heart, but his mind as well.  The lingering warmth he used to get has been traded for shaking, shivering, body-wrenching chills and frosted blue lips when he wakes.  The kind of chill he didn’t realise he could still, physically, feel. 

More importantly, he can remember these dreams.

Squall is trapped in a veritable maze of ice.  And a voice – a woman’s voice, familiar – calls out to him, riding on gusts of wind, beckoning him closer.  Leading him through the maze.  In the centre of the maze is a garden – or what used to be a garden but is now a palace of ice.  The deeper he gets, the colder it is, and the garden should be sub-zero, but it doesn’t bother him.  Especially not once he sees her.  He doesn’t know who she is and when he wakes, he can never quite tell what she looks like, but Squall wakes up every morning with the overwhelming desire to find her.  

The desire fades the instant his feet hit the floor.  

Squall goes about his day.

That night, the dream changes.  Shifts.  He’s not in the maze.  He dreams of lights dancing through the sky, leading him to the fortress.  Showing him the path.  When he wakes up, the lights are still there.  They sit just outside his window, waiting.  Squall doesn’t find this strange.  He does find it curious.  Not curious enough to follow to where they are trying to lead him.  He eats breakfast without thought and gets ready for work.  When he steps through the door, a light dips low, brushing against his cheek. 

Squall is enthralled.  He follows.

Squall walks.  For hours or days or weeks, he couldn’t say.  He walks until he arrives where he’s going.  A giant ice fortress sat on a plain, just like his dreams.  Inside, the familiar maze.  He navigates on autopilot.  It feels like he’s walked this path a million times, but then, he has.  In the centre of the maze, that garden, frozen in time.  Literally frozen.  It’s even more beautiful than he dreamt. 

And she’s there.  The goddess of ice. 

Shiva. 

The name comes to him, unbidden.  Familiar.  Shiva speaks.  Squall can’t hear her.  He hears a faint hum, but can make out no words.  The hum grows louder and louder – it’s a roar, deafening him, but silent at the same time.  _Wake up_ , he thinks he can make out in her smooth voice under the screaming silence, but that’s not right.  He is awake. 

 _How do I wake you up?_ He hears, clearly all of a sudden, a different voice.  One he recognizes – from his dreams from before.  He’s not sure how he knows that.  He can’t remember his dreams. _Squall, please, wake up._

The ice shatters all around him.  He closes his eyes.

Squall wakes up.  He’s back in his apartment.  Or maybe he never left his apartment.  It doesn’t matter – he feels an overwhelming heaviness in his body, a lead in his limbs that has him crawling back into bed without a second thought.

Squall sleeps.  He dreams.


	4. Hibernation

It’s been three weeks.  When Rinoa walks in, her face is determined and her eyes are sad.  Cloud knows what she’s here to say before she says it.  She’s not like the other visitors – like Laguna or Yuffie or Cid, just flitting through.  Stopping in to see if there’s been any changes.  Rinoa has been here to make changes.

The sorceress opens her mouth.  “I’m sorry,” she says.  Cloud wants to stop listening.  He doesn’t.  “I’ve tried everything I can think of.  There’s nothing else I can do. I just-I don’t know what else to do.” 

It’s not what he wants to hear, but it’s what he expected.  He glances down at the way too still body lying prone on the bed.  He wonders if Squall can hear them.  They’re in the back room of the 7th Heaven.  Tifa has kept the bar closed for the past three weeks. 

“She cursed him with her dying breath,” Rinoa continues. “If she was alive, I could maybe do something, but – he killed her.”  These were things Cloud already knows.  Cloud wishes he’d been there to help, but they all had their own personal battles to fight.  Squall’s was the evil sorceress plaguing the kingdom.  Ultimecia.  Cloud had been dealing with his own. 

Squall wouldn’t have accepted his help then anyway. 

“I’m not giving up on him,” Cloud says.  It’s all he can think to say.

Rinoa shakes her head.  “I’m not suggesting that.  I’m just saying – I can’t do anything.”

Cloud raises an eyebrow, beckons for her to continue when she pauses.

“There may be someone else who can help,” she says.  “Another sorceress – more powerful than me.  More experienced. The chances that she can help are still slim, but she has knowledge I don’t. She lives in the wastelands and keeps to herself.  Edea.   The chances that she will help are even slimmer. She doesn’t usually like to help people, but in this case…”  Rinoa trails off.  She pauses. Thinking.  And then she continues.  “There’s a chance.  She likes Squall.  She’s…his mother,” Rinoa finishes. 

Cloud frowns.  “His mother’s dead.” 

“She raised him,” Rinoa clarifies.  “A long time ago.  He doesn’t remember.”

It’s answer enough.  It’s help.  Travelling to the wastelands is a risky idea on the best of days.  It’s a foolhardy risk when one half of the travel party will be unconscious.  The risk is worth it.

It’s Squall.  The risk is always worth it.

The others aren’t happy, when Cloud tells them.  Sorceresses are risky propositions – most aren’t benevolent like Rinoa.  Even the ones willing to help usually charge a price too steep to be reasonable.  The wastelands are deadly, too.  No one who goes ever comes back.  They’re lost forever.  They protest – Rinoa will figure it out in time, they say.  Or Squall will wake up on his own.  Or love will break the curse, the way it works in fairytales.

The only person who doesn’t protest is Laguna.  He doesn’t know his son very well – their relationship is too new – but he does know two things:  he knows a father’s love for his son, and he knows what it is to be in love.  He agrees with the decision.  Even if he didn’t, he knows there will be no stopping Cloud. 

The travel plans are made.  Cloud will take Squall and leave in the morning.  He walks away from the still ongoing protests and into the backroom.  He locks the door behind him.  He sits back down next to the bed, taking Squall’s limp hand in his own. 

Squall continues to sleep.

He almost looks like he’s dreaming. 


	5. Blizzard/Winter Sun

The journey to the wastelands isn’t as perilous as Cloud expected.  They drive most of the way – a car instead of his bike, given Squall’s condition.  They drive until they reach the end of the world.  There’s no more road.  The rest of the trip is on foot. 

Cloud parks.  He hoists Squall’s limp body onto his back.  They walk.  There are no monsters here.  The wastelands are the very edge of the earth.  Even they’re not stupid enough to venture this far out.  It’s peaceful.  Winter’s chill sets into his bones, but Cloud ignores it.  Other than that, the weather is perfect.  The cold sun shines down on him, amplifying the stillness with pale light. 

Squall is right there with him, but Cloud feels inexplicably alone.

He thinks about turning back.  He laughs.  No, he won’t turn back.  He’s walked for so long he doesn’t think he could turn back.  Everything around him, as far as his eyes can see, is barren.  And Cloud’s eyes can see farther than most.  There’s no hint to tell which direction he came from.  Not even footsteps in the ground.  That’s the real danger of the wastelands – not monsters:  getting trapped for eternity with no way out.  Wandering in circles until you waste away.  Until you can’t tell what’s up or down – real or not. 

And that’s without the hallucinations. 

The hallucinations can be very real.  Cloud, luckily (or unluckily) has enough experience with hallucinations to help keep him sane.  He sees Zack, first in little glimpses past the corner of his eye.  Then bolder.  Slipping into his line of sight.  Walking next to him.  In front of him.  Tempting Cloud to come with him.  Cloud ignores him. 

He sees Aerith next – separately from Zack at first.  She appears in much the same way.  Her words are sweeter, more enticing.  They do nothing to dissuade Cloud from his path.  Then, Zack and Aerith together.  It doesn’t matter, though.  Cloud doesn’t care about them right now.  Zack and Aerith are dead – he came to terms with that a long time ago.  Squall, on the other hand, is not.  There’s a very real possibility they could die out here, but if that happens, it won’t be because of Cloud’s mind playing tricks on him. (In the back of his mind, the thought niggles:  if they die out here, they’ll be together.)

Cloud walks for days.  At night, he stops.  Sets up camp.  Talks to Squall about anything – everything.  He gets no response, but it’s better than engaging with the ghosts of his friends long past. 

On the eighteenth day, Cloud sees it.  The castle.  A crumbling, black tower in the vast white wastelands.  They make it by nightfall.  The doors open easily.  The place seems abandoned.  Cloud wanders through halls, down corridors, across abandoned courtyards, through the remains of what looked to once be a garden, calling out for this sorceress.  Edea.

He turns a corner and there she is.

“Not many people come this way,” she says in greeting.

“I need your help,” Cloud replies.  Pauses.  Turns so she can get a better look at his burden.  “He needs your help,” he amends.

Her eyes widen, near imperceptibly. She still manages to look shell shocked.  “Squall…” she says faintly.  She leads them to a room without preamble.  It’s a nice room.  Well decorated, clearly maintained.  Not like the rest of this rundown castle. 

“What happened?” she asks once they are settled.  Squall rests on the bed, as still as always.  Cloud reaches down a hand and brushes a strand of hair from his face. 

“He defeated the sorceress Ultimecia,” Cloud explains.  “She cursed him.”

Edea examines her surrogate son with a keen eye. 

“He’s trapped in a dream,” she says, finally.  “He may never wake up.”

That’s not what Cloud came all this way to hear.  He knows this already. 

“Can you do anything?” he asks.

“I can try,” she says, and it’s all he can hope for.  Cloud looks back down at Squall.  He wonders what he’s dreaming about.  He hopes it’s pleasant.

~~~

There’s a blizzard.  Squall hasn’t left the house in – who knows.  His parents call.  Check up on him.  Squall sits on the couch, listening to the wind batter the windows.  He can almost hear her voice again – the ice goddess.  Shiva.  The curiosity is gone now.  He doesn’t try and follow. The dreams die down, and with them, the wind.  Snow blankets the world when he emerges.  It’s fitting, somehow.  Still.  Silent.

In the stillness, he can hear a different voice, he thinks.  Maybe.  It’s hard to tell.  It doesn’t sound familiar.  He thinks it should.

Squall wakes up.

There is no blizzard.  No snow.  No voices.  It was just a dream.


	6. Fantasy

There’s someone in his apartment.  A woman.  She wasn’t there when he left this morning, Squall thinks.  He can’t be sure.  She sits at the table, watching.  Saying nothing.  Squall ignores her.  Or maybe he just doesn’t quite notice her.  It’s not important enough to catch his attention.  Nothing is, these days. 

“Squall,” she says, and he hears it.  He stops.  Turns to her.  He thinks he might know her.  She looks familiar.  She reminds him of his mother.  He needs to call his mother.  The woman stands; she moves closer to him.

“You don’t remember me,” she says.  “But you forgot me long before you ever came here.”  Her words confuse him.  “I can’t break this spell on you,” she continues, and Squall has no idea what she’s talking about. He’s lost.  “It’s powerful.  You don’t even realise you’re not awake anymore.  You’ve even blocked out Shiva’s voice.”  Shiva rings a bell, but the fleeting recognition is gone as fast as it comes.  The woman realises this. She rests a hand against his cheek.  It’s warm.  He’d forgotten what that felt like.  It’s always cold now.

Maybe it’s always so cold because he’s already dead.

The thought disappears as fast as it comes.

“If you want to wake up, you have to wake yourself up. You have to remember.  It’s hard, I know.  The magic doesn’t want you to remember.”  She hands him something. He takes it automatically.  A small mirror.  “The mirror is the key.  Use it,” she says.  “Cloud’s waiting for you.”

Cloud.  The name rings fifty different bells in the back of his mind.  He looks down at the mirror.  When he looks up, the woman is gone.  Squall blinks.

He’s in his bed.  A dream, then.  He goes about his day.  The name Cloud lingers on his mind, filling him with a strange sense of yearning.  He goes back to Seifer.  His hair is still the wrong shade of blonde and his eyes the wrong blue.  It doesn’t fill the void.  It helps. 

When Squall gets home, the mirror sits on the coffee table in the living room.  He almost walks past it.  Barely notices it.  It tugs at his mind, though, calling to him.  He picks it up.  It comes to life in his hand.  The glass, suddenly a screen.  Images flash.  A high-pitched whining starts up right between his ears.  It grows louder the more he watches.  The noise is screaming, a piercing pain that makes his head pulse.  The images in the mirror shift.  They’re all of a man now – the same man.  Blonde hair.  Blue eyes.  The right shade.

 _Cloud_ , Squall thinks.  And just like that, he remembers.  He remembers meeting Cloud that first night at Tifa’s bar.  He remembers their first kiss, riding high on the adrenaline of killing monsters together.  Their first date.  Their apartment together.  He remembers their last kiss – extracting a promise from Cloud to keep safe going after Sephiroth.

Ironies.

He remembers Ultimecia – that castle he’d had to go to.  Remembers beating her.  And he remembers the spell.  That last bit of magic he’d seen too late, staggering away, thinking he was going to die anyway.  Maybe that really is the reason he’s so cold now.

Except – no.  He’s alive.  He’s dreaming.  This is all a dream, and he’s trapped here with no way out. 

Squall blinks.  He’s in the street.  It’s deserted – odd for this time of day.  Except, he reminds himself, if this is a dream, time of day means nothing.  Something clatters to the ground next to him.  He looks.  His gunblade. He picks it up. 

That’s when the monster appears – the monster in his mind.  A huge, grotesque, lion-shaped beast with wings protruding from his back.  Squall clutches the mirror tight in his hand.  The woman’s words echo through his mind:  _the key_.  He doesn’t know how, but he knows it’s important.  The beast attacks.  Squall fights.  More monsters stream in.  He’s surrounded.  The beast swats at him with giant claws.  He dives, but it hits his arm, tearing through flesh.  The mirror falls, tumbling to the ground.  It shatters.

Squall keeps fighting.  He hacks and slashes and shoots.  He fights until he can’t remember why he started fighting to begin with.

Squall doesn’t wake up.


	7. Free

Edea goes into Squall’s mind. 

“What now?” Cloud asks when the sorceress emerges from the dream land.  He’s been on edge since she went under. 

“We wait,” she says simply.

Cloud frowns.  That is not the response he wants.  He’s staked too much of his hope on this.  “We wait?”

“We wait,” she repeats.  “He’ll wake up,” Edea says.  “Or he won’t.”

So Cloud waits.  He waits for hours.  He waits for days, for weeks.  And then he’s been waiting for months.  A year passes, then two.  Cloud never leaves Squall’s side, except when he has to.  He sits with Squall every day.  Waiting.  Hoping.  Squall remains unchanged.  Cloud finds a grey hair in the mirror one day and realises he’s not.  The decision has been building for two years, but it’s made in a split second when it consciously crosses his mind. 

He seeks out the sorceress in her study.

“Squall’s not waking up,” he says.  She studies him quietly, contemplatively.

“No,” she finally responds.  “He’s not.”

“He’s never waking up,” he clarifies.

“No,” the sorceress repeats, voice softer.  “He’s not.”

Cloud nods once.  Determinedly.  “Then I’ll sleep, too,” he says.

Edea raises an eyebrow, one delicate arch that is enough to express her surprise.  “Do you know what you’re asking?”

Cloud does.  He’s thought about this many times over the past two years.  It’s the obvious solution.  Cloud has already lost two of the most important people in his life – he refuses to give up and lose Squall, too. 

“If you join him in the dream,” she says, “You won’t be able to wake up, either.”

“I know.”

“My spell is different – you won’t be like him.  You’ll remember what’s real.  What you’re giving up.”

“I don’t care.”

She looks at him with narrowed eyes, judging.  Contemplating.  Thinking.  And then:  “Okay,” she says.  “When do you want to?”

“Right now,” Cloud says.  He’s as ready as he’ll ever be.  He’s waited two years.  He’s not waiting another minute.

Edea smiles.  “I’m glad he has you,” she says. She says everything. 

~~~

Squall is tired.  He’s been fighting for longer than he can remember.  An endless battle of blood and carnage.  It wasn’t always like this, he thinks.  Squall’s not sure what to think anymore.  He just knows he’s ready to stop.  So he does.  He sits down and drops his head into his hands.  The fighting stops.  He looks up.  He’s sitting on a street corner, just outside his apartment.  His weapon sits next to him, misplaced.  He frowns, wondering why it’s there.  It should be in its case.  It’s a collector’s item.

Squall closes his eyes.  He doesn’t know how long he sits there.  A shadow falls over him.  He opens them.  He looks up.

The man standing over him is familiar.  Squall feels like he knows him.  His hair is – the right shade of blonde, and his eyes the right shade of blue, and the soft smile he’s staring down at him makes Squall’s heart warm in a way he hadn’t realised it could.  The man reaches down a hand to help him up.

Squall takes it without thinking.  He lets himself be pulled to his feet and—

“Cloud,” he says, realising.  He’s not sure how he knows him.  But he does.  And for the first time in a long time, he feels what he thinks might be happiness. 

“Squall,” Cloud replies.  “It’s been…a long time.” 

Has it?  Squall doesn’t know.  But Cloud feels right, and so Squall says, “Let’s go home.”  Cloud nods.  He might be tearing up a bit. 

They go home together.  The apartment is warm.  The bed is warm.  Everything, for the first time, feels warm.  Squall feels alive.  It’s a feeling he hopes will never end.

Squall sleeps.

He no longer dreams.

(Cloud dreams.  He dreams of things Squall will never know.  He dreams of friends and family they will never see again.  Places they will never go.  Goodbyes he didn’t take the time to have.  Cloud dreams of the futures they could have had – the future they should have had.  He dreams for both of them.)

And when he wakes – well.

He doesn’t.

Neither of them wake anymore.

They sleep forever.


End file.
